Theatre in Review: Flipzoids (Ma-Yi Theatre Company) Flipzoids is basically a play about an old lady on a beach, and it's our good fortune that she's played by Ching Valdes-Aran. As Aying, an aging Filipino woman who has been unwillingly brought to Southern California in 1985 by her striver of a daughter, she prowls the stage with the vigor and frustration of a wild animal that has been captured and packed off to a strange and highly uninviting captivity. No doubt about it, she's a handful, and not just because she's a creature of quicksilver moods, acting grave and elderly one moment, dropping wisecracks a moment later, and running around the stage the moment after that. Among other things, she thoroughly capable of acting out, as when she invades the local mall, jumps in a fountain, and starts to perform some ancient ceremony, terrifying the shoppers and mortifying Vangie, her daughter. Vangie is Aying's opposite number in every way. A nurse, she's in love with America to the extent that she is attempting to memorize the English dictionary, word by word. (It's an understatement to say that this activity irritates her mother.) The two are clearly at a standoff, which is probably one reason Aying spends most of her time at the beach. While there, she tries to engage the heart and mind of Redford, a young American-born Filipino man -- although with his orange hair and trendy wardrobe, she's not entirely convinced that Redford is Asian at all. In fact, Redford is alienated from just about everything, starting with his materialistic family. Without friends or any kind of meaningful work, he spends his time cruising the men's room at the beach. Even there, he's something of a loser, driving men away because he talks too much. The author, Ralph B. Pena, makes sure that, for the first half at least, Flipzoids is deftly dedicated to showing that there's more than one kind of exile. Some are forced into it, like Aying. Others opt for it, like Vangie. And still others don't realize that they're experiencing it, like Redford. (Redford notes that he is an example of a Flip, meaning he is American-born -- although, he sadly concedes, the bullies at school used the term as an acronym for "fucking little island people.") Once Pena establishes his group portrait of alienation, however, there's nowhere else to go, and Flipzoids increasingly looks like a situation in search of a play. Before it reaches that blind alley, however, Flipzoids has a number of amusing and insightful points to make. The director, Loy Arcenas, has been a designer for the bulk of his career, but his skill at handling actors grows from production to production. This is Valdes-Aran's second crack at the role, and no doubt she can take care of herself. The roles of Redford and Vangie are cardboard constructions who exist only to serve as foils for Aying; nevertheless, it's fun to see how Tina Chilip, as Vangie, glows with evangelical fervor as she makes her way through the alphabet. Carlo Alban makes Redford into a thoroughly appealing sad young man. (The script never really wants to wrestle with the character's self-destructive tendencies, so there's no reason Alban should want to, either.) Arcenas' high-concept design is both beautiful and a little bit problematic. The stage is covered with sand, surrounded by a rectangular boardwalk; upstage is a series of black slate walls and a toilet stall. The walls are covered with Filipino names -- and it was some time before I realized that many of them-Jose Llana, Jessica Hagedorn -- are well-known actors and writers. After that, the set became a bit of a distraction; any time the action slowed, I started looking to see who else was up there. In any event, James Vermeulen's severely geometric arrangement of overhead beams and side lighting invests the setting with extra beauty. Arcenas' costumes are spot-on, and the sound design by Fabian Obispo and Chris Schardin is a smooth blend of environment sounds -- waves and the like -- with pop music and Obispo's incidental scoring. Taken as a vehicle for Valdes-Aran, Flipzoids just about works; at the performance I attended, she had the audience's rapt attention. Still, it would be nice if Pena could find some meaningful way to throw these three people together -- he might have a fully realized play on his hands.--David Barbour 
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